**4.2. Bermuda**

There are very few traces of intense contact between Bermudans and Yankee whalers. That was due to a combination of factors: (1) Bermuda was a stronghold of the British during the Revolutionary War, which made its waters off-limits to New Englanders; (2) during the British-American war of 1812, the English utilized Bermuda as a major base for their naval operations and any American vessel in those waters (whaler or otherwise) was captured and taken there; (3) during the American Civil War Bermudans who had historical ties with the South, particularly Virginia and the Carolinas, sided with the confederates, making of Bermudan waters hostile territory to Yankee whalers and (4) by the time of the heyday of Yankee whaling the local populations of humpbacks were already severely depleted since shore whaling began around 1663 in those waters.

Thus, despite the overall large number of Yankee whalers visiting Bermuda, it seems that those visits were more a matter of convenience for obtaining provisions for ships either heading to the Eastern Atlantic grounds or heading south to the Caribbean. My survey of archival material in Bermuda yielded no information about relationships between Yankee whalers and the locals (Romero 2009).
